Evening Wire: Russell Brand Convicted & Russia Meets With Ukraine At White House | 11.5.26

Russell Brand is convicted in a UK court, Russian and Ukrainian representatives meet at the White House, and the discovery of a new type of magnet could lead to breakthroughs in computing. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Thursday, November 5th. This is Evening Wire. British actor and comedian Russell Brand was convicted of rape and sexual assault today. Entertainment reporter Amanda Harding has more. A London jury found Brand guilty on one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault involving four women. The charges stem from incidents that took place in the decade between 1999 and 2009. While Brand admitted he had lived a promiscuous life before his turn to Christianity, he said he never forced himself on anyone. However, prosecutors painted him as a ruthless, calculating, manipulative sexual predator. After the verdict, Brand was taken into custody. He is set to be sentenced on Monday. At least 20 commercial flights across Europe were diverted today because of bomb threats. All of those flights were cancelled. Those threats turned out to be hoaxes, but the volume of them and the short amount of time they occurred has raised suspicions of coordination. An aviation security expert told the BBC that the threats seem to have stemmed from a, quote, very deliberate act by a typical actor rather than a load of coincidental malicious calls. While no group has taken credit, the bomb scares come at a time when concern across Europe is rising over sabotage efforts from Russia, Iran, and other opposition countries. Russian and Ukrainian representatives are meeting at the White House today, where First Lady Melania Trump is bringing the two sides together to recognize a ceasefire that she helped broker in Oleshki. The truce allowed humanitarian aid deliveries and civilian evacuations before expiring on November 1st. A Ukrainian official called the agreement the biggest de-escalation since 2022, while the Russian envoy praised President Trump's peace efforts. The ceasefire was limited to Oleshki and the surrounding Kyrsten region. Melania says she hopes it can become a starting point for broader peace. The head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon, has resigned. Dhillon's departure marks the first significant resignation within the Trump administration since the major election loss Tuesday. Attorney General Todd Blanch announced Dhillon's resignation, praising her as having, quote, defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor. He said the department is grateful for her dedicated public service and wishes her every success in her future endeavors. Dhillon told Fox Digital that she was not asked to resign, but that she, in fact, resigned three weeks ago, but was asked to wait until after the midterms. A leading House Democrat is promising retribution against anyone who helped Trump. Reporter Zach Jewell has more. In an interview on MS Now, Representative Jamie Raskin stated, quote, we will not hesitate to go after the private corporations that are collaborating in all of the lawlessness with Donald Trump. We've done it before and we will absolutely do it again. Raskin did not indicate which specific actions were lawlessness, but suggested that any term that made a deal of any kind with the Trump administration was automatically suspect. Raskin notably did not explain how his retribution strategy would align with his party's campaign promise to lower gas prices, address the affordability crisis, or put an end to the war in Iran. There's a special kind of frustration that comes from being kept awake by someone who's sleeping perfectly soundly. And if you've ever shared a room with a snorer, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I can remember going with my in-laws on the phone and telling them, on a skiing trip before I'd actually married my wife and I'd sleep out on the couch. The couch next to me was my little brother-in-law and he snored so loud. I thought maybe a bear had crawled into our ski lodge that night, but no, it was my brother-in-law. I wish he had heard of Excite OSA from Spring Sleep. Excite OSA works a different way. It treats a root cause instead of managing the noise and you use it while you're awake. It's an FDA cleared prescription device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. Just $20. 20 minutes a day for six weeks and then a lighter routine to maintain it. Most people notice a change in four to six weeks. And in clinical studies, 90% of patients saw a reduction in snoring. So see if it's right for you. Get Excite OSA at springsleep.com slash wire and use code wire, W-I-R-E for 20% off. Again, that is Excite OSA at springsleep.com slash wire. Thanks to Spring Sleep for sponsoring this episode. Excite OSA is an FDA cleared prescription only device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. It's not for everyone. Individual results vary. Risks and benefits at springsleep.com. Democratic socialists known as LA's Mom Donnie will be the next mayor of California's largest city. Nithya Raman secured her victory over LA Mayor Karen Bass on Wednesday evening when the race was called. Here was Raman last night. It's a simple vision. It doesn't feel radical to me. Doesn't feel that radical. Radical and device right here. Where artists can afford to make their art. Where government answers when you call and takes responsibility for getting things done. Where we stand up against us. We show up for our gay and trans siblings. Where children can walk safely to school. Where there is shade at a bus station. Where our streets are alive with neighbors and music and good food. We believed that Angelenos were hungry for that city. And it turns out that we were right. Raman's win is another victory for the Democratic Party's far left flank represented by the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Raman is a member. Data centers were among the victims of Tuesday's blue tsunami. Voters in 10 states sided against development in 40 of 41 ballot measures. Associate producer Garrett Van Team has more. In Ohio, a major data center hub, voters in one city approved restrictions on future construction by nearly 30 points. The issue was a major talking point for many Democrats in statewide races, including in Texas, where Democrat Gina Hinojosa unseated three-term incumbent Greg Abbott while promising a statewide moratorium on new projects. One poll taken before the election found that 7 in 10 Americans, including most Republicans, oppose new data centers in their communities. One group estimated as much as 30 percent of new data center projects could be at risk by 2028, sending AI and chip stocks into freefall this morning. Semiconductor stocks fell nearly 10 percent in just a few hours, led by massive losses in heavyweight stocks like NVIDIA and Broadcom. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is facing a bipartisan impeachment case against the Democratic Party. He says he's not going to threat when Congress returns next week, as some Republicans blame the Iran war for their midterm losses. Congressman Thomas Massey says he plans to force a vote unless Hegseth resigns, and several Republicans told Fox News they expect the measure could actually pass, though it would also face a procedural hurdle in eventually the Senate. The White House defended Hegseth, while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries also called for him to go. Live Golf is officially shutting down after five seasons. Reporter Lyndon Blake has the story. Live Golf is now dead. League lawyers telling a New Jersey bankruptcy court today that they plan to liquidate the business rather than restructure it. The decision follows Saudi Arabia's public investment fund cutting off the $5 billion in funding that launched and sustained the league, along with investment firm BC Partners withdrawing a promised $300 million bailout. Live has been pursuing a revamped version of the league with Bryson DeChambeau as its leader. Live Golf is now seen as a leading star, but that plan now appears dead. Several prominent players, including Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia, had already announced plans to leave. And if the past few days have left you questioning everything about the universe, we've got one more for you, as researchers confirm the existence of a new type of magnet. Writer Nick Sheehan explains. For the last century or so, every physics textbook has taught that there are two kinds of magnets, ferromagnets and antiferromagnets. So if you're a magnet, you're a magnet. If you're a magnet, you're a magnet. So electrons, as you may know, have a charge, but they also have another quality known as spin. Ferromagnets, like the ones you put on your fridge, occur when all the electrons in a material have the same direction of spin. Antiferromagnets occur when adjacent spins are opposite to each other. Now, researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and at Oak Ridge have confirmed a whole new type of magnet, which exhibits properties of a magnet that are not of both of the others. Like antiferromagnets, they have no net magnetic charge. But like ferromagnets, they have polarized bands where spin is aligned. The reason this matters is that spin state could be a viable method for storing information in computer systems. Right now, the most basic store of information in a computer relies on reading an electron's charge. If computers could also read spin, they would be able to store information in a computer. So if you're a an entirely new avenue of computer science could open up, making devices more powerful and requiring less energy to operate. Researchers say lots of work still lies ahead. But if they can find a way to harness this new discovery, it could entirely change the landscape of computer technology. Those are your Drive Home updates this evening. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com. And in case you missed it earlier today, we covered some major stories, including the impact of the election broken down in the United States. And if you want to learn more about these stories, go to by Ben Shapiro, conservative policies winning even in blue states, and the Supreme Court signaling it may side with religious schools facing discrimination. Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow morning with another full edition of Morning Wire.